"... scholars evaluating textual manifestations of ‘voices from the past’ have outlined an extraordinary ‘spectrum of possible scenarios’ in the way texts and oral influences may have contributed to the composition, performance, and reception of the enduring textualized product. This spectrum of scenarios will be no less diverse when it comes to the question of associations and how an author might have come to include them in his work. This can make it very difficult to assess, with any certainty, how certain associations came to be, whether by textual, traditional, or (likely in many instances) a combination of textual-and-traditional processes. It is painfully difficult to tell, for example, whether John 1:51 is specifically dependent upon, and thus specifically referring to, the text of Genesis 28:12, or whether it more flexibly intersects with popularized Jacob traditions (that themselves may or may not also be cognizant of one or several possible texts). The phrase ‘ascending and descending’ in context unambiguously and exclusively signals neither a text nor a traditional repertoire nor any combination thereof. That it refers to the Jacob-at-Bethel story is fairly clear ..."